Free expression in Americas goes beyond left or right

On Sunday the general assembly of the Organization of
American States will convene in Bolivia in the verdant, highland valley city of
Cochabamba. The 35 member states (every nation in the region except Cuba) are
expected to vote on a measure that, if passed, could
curtail free expression and press throughout the hemisphere and put journalists
and others at greater risk.

Consider the case of Héctor
Francisco Medina Polanco, who was murdered with impunity, like so many others, a
year ago this month in Honduras.

Medina was producer and host of the "TV9" news program for
the local Honduran cable company Omega Visión. One
day in May 2011, while riding home from work on his motorcycle, he was chased
by assailants on another motorcycle who eventually closed in enough to fatally
shoot him. Though the motive for the killing
hasn't been confirmed, Medina had helped uncover alleged corruption involving
local officials and irregularities in law enforcement by local police. He had
also reported on land disputes including some conflicts where landless farm
workers seized
territory held by powerful cattle ranchers and
others.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur
for Freedom of Expression of the human rights commission for the Organization
of American States condemned his murder, and expressed "concern over the lack
of significant progress in clarifying the murders
of [by then] 11 media workers in Honduras since 2009"--which is when a coup
installed a right-leaning government.

The OAS free expression office,
however, doesn't play politics. Over the past year alone, Special Rapporteur Catalina
Botero and her staff have issued detailed
statements condemning the murders of journalists
in Brazil, Haiti, Colombia, Mexico, and again in Honduras--whose leaders tend to
run from moderate to conservative. Botero, who is herself Colombian, also defended
the rights of the Ngöbe Buglé indigenous
group in Panamá to express freely during protests against mining and
hydroelectric development in their ancestral territory.

It's not surprising then that the
office of the special rapporteur for free expression has come under criticism.
But it might surprise some to learn that the attack has come from some of the
top leftist leaders in Latin America today. President Rafael Correa of Ecuador
is the OAS free expression office's biggest critic. He is upset that Special
Rapporteur Botero has denounced his attempts to have executives from Ecuador's
leading daily found guilty
of criminal libel, and criticized some Ecuadoran laws for contradicting
international standards on freedom of expression.

The criminal libel case began with
a February, 2011, opinion column in El
Universo saying Correa could be charged with crimes against humanity--a
steep charge rarely upheld in international courts without clear evidence of
extensive and deliberate loss of innocent lives--for the way he put down a
violent police strike over cuts to pay and benefits. (The government said five
lives were lost in the military
operation that ended the strike and freed Correa
from a surrounded
police hospital where he had been treated for
tear gas exposure.) In February this year, Ecuador's highest court upheld a
criminal libel conviction and sentencedEl Universo's
three directors and opinion editor to three years each in prison and a total of
US$40 million in damages. Correa later pardoned them, but the damage was done;
a chilling precedent had been set.

In January, an OAS working group including
representatives of Ecuador and Venezuela proposed a series of recommendations to
the way the OAS should handle human rights and freedom of expression issues. The
recommendations include preventing the rapporteur from publishing its own
report on freedom of expression in the Americas; tightening the office's
funding by not allowing it to seek independent financial support; and creating
a code of conduct to increase states' control. In response, CPJ sent OAS Secretary-General
José Miguel Insulza a letter urging him to strongly support the work of the human
rights monitoring body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR),
and its special rapporteur for freedom of expression by publicly denouncing any
attempts by member states aimed at weakening these institutions.

Individual member states often
balk when they are singled out for criticism. Back in 2009, I testified at an OAS free expression hearing and ended up provoking spontaneous
complaints from the floor by representatives of each Colombia, Venezuela and the United
States for raising specific press freedom issues
in each of their nations.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur of the
IACHR was created in 1997 to advance freedom of expression issues in the
hemisphere. For more than a decade, it has emphasized the need to end impunity
in crimes against the press, denounced government censorship, campaigned for
the elimination of insult and defamation laws, and promoted access to
information. Through the 2000s the office,
under different special rapporteurs, examined free expression and press
concerns in nations including Colombia, Guatemala, Panamá, Haiti and Paraguay. Last year, the same office issued special reports on Mexico, Venezuela, and Honduras.

Many of these same nations seem
ambivalent about the Ecuadoran- and Venezuelan-backed proposals to curtail OAS
monitoring of free expression and press conditions. Argentina and Brazil, each
of which has its own ongoing tension with the press, have remained largely
silent, according to a
report earlier this year by the Knight Center for
Journalism in the Americas. The Colombian ambassador has said publicly that the
proposed changes are not drastic, reported the Colombian weekly Semana. Bolivia and Nicaragua, each of which
also has a left-leaning president, are expected to vote with Ecuador and
Venezuela.

Leaders of these nations and
others should remember journalists like Héctor
Francisco Medina Polanco murdered a year ago in Honduras. And Ángel Alfredo Villatoro,
a radio journalist whose remains were found in the
Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa this May after he was kidnapped from his car
the week before. And the dozens of other journalists who have been murdered
with impunity in countries from Mexico to Brazil.

As powerful perpetrators continue to harass, attack and murder
journalists across much of the region, Special Rapporteur Botero is one of the
few officials anywhere in the hemisphere who is lending her voice to those who
no longer have one, and helping to defend their brave colleagues who continue
to report despite a palpable danger. If the
debate over the Office of Free Expression is about politics, it is so largely
in the most cynical sense of the word.

In the abstract, the OAS debate is
about the principles of freedom of expression and the press. That means defending
the right of everyone to practice good as well as bad journalism, including the
use of hyperbole and worse, and no matter the political leanings. On the ground
it means supporting journalists who continue to stand up to corrupt, abusive
and criminal actors, knowing they may suffer consequences including paying for
their integrity with their lives. It is a matter of security for journalists throughout
the region.